Author: lthistle@whyy.org

Transcript:

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

Frustration is growing in Venezuela following last week’s deadly earthquakes. They’ve killed more than 1,700 people, according to local authorities. Those on the ground say the response from the country’s U.S.-backed government has been slow and poorly coordinated, leaving many in the disaster zone to fend for themselves. John Otis reports.

(SOUNDBITE OF CLATTERING)

JOHN OTIS, BYLINE: A backhoe is digging through the ruins of a 12-story building that collapsed here in the coastal town of Los Corales. But the government backhoe operator never showed up, so local residents had to pay for one. Such delays are costing lives, says Rosalia Bustamante, who lost several friends who were inside the building.

ROSALIA BUSTAMANTE: (Speaking Spanish).

OTIS: “There were people in the ruins responding when we called out to them,” she says, “but now they are dead.”

Neighborhood volunteers have pulled more than a dozen corpses out of the building, but lacking body bags, they resort to garbage bags and plastic sheets.

In front of me, rescue workers are laying out the corpse of a dead child underneath a palm tree.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Spanish).

OTIS: Venezuela has thousands of police and army troops, but they have been slow to arrive and some have been accused of looting. They’ve also set up road blocks and are demanding government permits from doctors and rescue workers.

JULIO MELENDEZ: (Speaking Spanish).

OTIS: Construction worker Julio Melendez tried to bring in a jackhammer to help search for survivors, but the process took two days because police demanded a government permit and the sales receipt for the jackhammer.

MELENDEZ: (Speaking Spanish).

OTIS: “The only thing the authorities do is get in the way,” he says.

Politics also got in the way the last time this part of Venezuela faced disaster.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Spanish).

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking Spanish).

OTIS: In 1999, amid mudslides that killed at least 10,000 people, then-President Hugo Chavez rejected U.S. help to rebuild roads and bridges, instead relying on help from his communist allies in Cuba. Now, aid workers are arriving from all over the world, but Venezuela is in far worse shape. People here have endured an economic meltdown, plus a crackdown on their democracy. All this has prompted more than a quarter of the population to flee the country, including large numbers of health workers and engineers.

ANTONIO RIVERO: (Speaking Spanish).

OTIS: Retired Venezuelan Army General Antonio Rivero says the country’s armed forces should have been deployed immediately with trucks, generators, portable lights and water systems. That didn’t happen.

RIVERO: (Speaking Spanish).

OTIS: Rather than helping people, Rivero says, the security forces are trained to view them as a threat that could rise up against the country’s repressive government.

After U.S. troops ousted authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro in January, he was replaced by acting President Delcy Rodriguez. She’s widely blamed for the government’s haphazard response to the earthquake, but it’s also allowed her to further delay a transition to democracy.

ORLANDO PEREZ: No one is seriously talking about elections anymore. That is all postponed indefinitely now.

OTIS: That’s Orlando Perez, a Latin America expert at the University of North Texas at Dallas. He points out, however, that earthquakes can upend governments, as was the case in Nicaragua. There, dictator Anastasio Somoza stole so much relief aid after a 1972 earthquake that it gave a boost to Sandinista rebels who toppled him.

PEREZ: That quake really was the beginning of the end of the Somoza regime.

OTIS: In Venezuela, anger is also rising.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Speaking Spanish).

OTIS: This woman, whose nephew died in the quake, blames the slow reaction of government officials.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Speaking Spanish).

OTIS: “They’re damn dogs,” she says.

Nearby, volunteers continue to improvise as they search for signs of life. At one collapsed building, they attach a cable to a chunk of concrete, then hit the gas to try to remove it.

(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE REVVING)

OTIS: But it barely budges.

For NPR News, I’m John Otis in Los Corales, Venezuela.

Transcript:

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

More than 5 million people across the country use a wheelchair, according to census data. When a part breaks down on those chairs, it’s not just an inconvenience. It can lead to being stuck at home and to serious health consequences. Wheelchair users say they do not have many options when they need a repair because, in part, of the private equity industry. GBH’s Meghan Smith has more.

MEGHAN SMITH, BYLINE: I’m walking around downtown Boston with Franklin Pineda-Lopez.

(SOUNDBITE OF WHEEL CLICKING)

SMITH: That is not what a wheelchair is supposed to sound like. One of his wheels is wobbly.

FRANKLIN PINEDA-LOPEZ: Our wheelchairs are our legs.

SMITH: This winter was tough on his chair. He’s been waiting for a repair since February.

PINEDA-LOPEZ: I’d like to get to, you know, point A to point B as fast as possible, which is why I have to always remember to kind of slow down.

SMITH: For wheelchair users across the country, long waits for repairs are common. Delays can leave them stranded on sidewalks, stuck in bed, missing family milestones, and they say it’s gotten worse over the past decade. They point to insurance approvals and a lack of technicians, but they say a growing reason for delays is the market is now controlled largely by two companies that are owned by private equity, Numotion and National Seating & Mobility.

PINEDA-LOPEZ: It’s not like a car where there’s many car shops. Something’s wrong with your car, you know, you can take it anywhere and get it fixed.

SMITH: The two companies have bought up dozens of competitors in recent years. Neither responded to requests for comment for this story. But the National Coalition for Assistive & Rehab Technology, a nonprofit that represents the industry, said they agree the repair process should be faster, and they support overhauling insurance requirements and focusing on preventative maintenance. But wheelchair users partly blame the private equity industry, where investment firms buy up companies, restructure them and intend to sell them. Critics say the business model prioritizes profits and cost cutting.

JIM BAKER: It’s really grown dramatically over the last couple of decades, and as that’s happened, it’s come to impact more and more aspects of people’s lives.

SMITH: That’s Jim Baker from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a nonprofit watchdog group based in Chicago.

BAKER: What we’re seeing in, you know, the wheelchair companies is a classic example of what private equity firms call a rollup transaction where essentially, they buy a company and then use it as a platform to buy lots of its competitors, right?

SMITH: A bill in the Massachusetts state House would require companies to finish repairs in 10 business days. Connecticut passed a similar bill last year. Other states have given wheelchair users the right to repair chairs themselves or find an independent provider. Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat, recently introduced a bill that would streamline the insurance process by removing the requirement for some users that repairs need to be preapproved. Destiny Maxam works at the Disability Policy Consortium in Boston.

DESTINY MAXAM: It all boils down to, like, in the simplicity of sake, is private equity.

SMITH: She says they prioritize providing new chairs versus making simple repairs.

MAXAM: My chair alone is over $80,000. They want to go for that versus, you know, a simple repair that’s, you know, under $1,000 type of thing.

SMITH: Three years ago, Maxam’s chair broke and she was stuck in bed. She developed pneumonia and ended up in the hospital on a breathing machine for two weeks while she waited to hear back from Numotion.

MAXAM: I remember coming off of the ventilator, and checking my phone was one of the first things that I wanted to do ’cause I wanted to see if – like, if they had called for the appointment. There was still nothing.

SMITH: It eventually took five months to get her chair fixed. Like almost every person I interviewed for this story, a part of Maxam’s chair was broken as we spoke. For NPR News, I’m Meghan Smith in Boston.

Transcript:

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

Much of the western U.S. is bracing for what could be a bad wildfire season. When resources are thin, federal and state firefighters usually prioritize more populated areas, protecting lives and property. That does not always include cattle ranchers in vast remote areas that are mostly grassland. From member station Oregon Public Broadcasting, Alejandro Figueroa reports that volunteer ranchers are filling in the gaps.

ALEJANDRO FIGUEROA, BYLINE: In the middle of Oregon’s sagebrush country, a dozen ranchers are refreshing their firefighting knowledge. They’re standing around an old military cargo truck. It’s got a water tank mounted in the back with a roaring diesel-powered pump.

(SOUNDBITE OF DIESEL-POWERED PUMP)

FIGUEROA: One person pretends to ignite a fire around the truck while Matt Bixby sprays it with water.

MATT BIXBY: I saved it. I saved the truck.

FIGUEROA: This is only practice for if, or when, they need to protect themselves from fire. Much of the West didn’t get a lot of snow this winter. Combined with warmer temperatures and droughts, forecasters say the ingredients that could make a wildfire season worse are there. Bixby says he hopes it rains all summer.

BIXBY: But we are definitely preparing that we will fight some fires if we have to.

FIGUEROA: Bixby, like all the ranchers in this training, are part of their local Rangeland Fire Protection Association, or RFPA. They’re similar to volunteer fire departments.

KATIE WOLLSTEIN: The difference is the RFPAs do not respond to structure fires.

FIGUEROA: That’s Katie Wollstein. She’s a rangeland fire specialist at Oregon State University. RFPAs receive training, radios and surplus fire engines from the Oregon Department of Forestry. In Oregon, like in other western states, the federal government manages vast tracts of land, and when a wildfire hits, federal agencies can’t protect everything at once. Shane Theall is the unit fire chief for the U.S. Wildland Fire Service in Burns, Oregon. He says the top priorities are life, property and then natural resources.

SHANE THEALL: If it were up to me, we would staff every fire equally. Every fire would be priority. But unfortunately, that’s, you know, not the world we live in.

FIGUEROA: That means on federal land, the grass cattle graze on may not get firefighting resources right away. And in Oregon, private land is protected by the state Department of Forestry or a rural fire district. But most of these remote rangelands aren’t protected by either. That’s where RFPAs come in. Oregon, along with Idaho and Nevada, are the only states with this model. Rangeland fire specialist Katie Wollstein says whether it can work in other states depends on many factors, including people.

WOLLSTEIN: Some landowners, for instance, are more enthusiastic to interface with the government than others. And so the model does very much hinge on willingness to cross those, quote, “boundaries” and get along.

FIGUEROA: That’s because RFPAs sometimes work alongside federal firefighters. Fourth-generation rancher Mark McBride says that means they have to communicate.

MARK MCBRIDE: We have an understanding, an agreement, and both sides follow it pretty well. So we’re like one unit instead of two teams fighting across the line from each other.

FIGUEROA: Sitting at a corner booth at a diner just a few miles west of the Idaho border, McBride, an RFPA member, says these groups are a natural fit for ranchers.

MCBRIDE: It gives us the benefit of having mutual aid agreements. It gives us the benefit of getting better equipment, which makes us more available to help ourselves and our neighbors.

FIGUEROA: That’s the motto of RFPAs – neighbors helping neighbors. And McBride can think of a time in recent memory where his RFPA was instrumental in protecting a neighbor’s property.

MCBRIDE: And I said, go home. Get some rest. Get something to eat. Short of dying, I will save what I can at your ranch.

FIGUEROA: After he was done, he got home to a voicemail from that neighbor.

MCBRIDE: And it said, I knew you were my friend. I had no idea how good a friend you were.

FIGUEROA: Many ranchers hope they’re training for a fire they never have to fight, but at least they know what to do if one comes. For NPR News, I’m Alejandro Figueroa in Burns, Oregon.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Transcript:

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

Most of the U.S. could see record-breaking temperatures this week as a heat wave hits a wide swath of the country. This follows a record-breaking heat wave in Europe last week where temperatures in parts of the continent reached more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The World Health Organization has linked hundreds of deaths across the continent to high temperatures, with the French public health agency reporting more than 1,000 fatalities in France alone over the past few days. Scientists from the World Weather Attribution group, or WWA, say their research shows this is the most severe and widespread heat wave to scorch Europe ever. Theodore Keeping is part of the WWA team and a research associate studying extreme weather at Imperial College London and joins us now. Welcome.

THEODORE KEEPING: Hiya (ph).

DETROW: Obviously, we focus on the temperatures, and the temperatures are pretty extreme. They’re pretty notable, but there’s a lot of factors going on that make this especially deadly, right? What is the best scientific way to think about this?

KEEPING: Yeah. So lots of factors contribute to the temperature that you actually feel in your body and the heat stress people experience, and therefore the health impacts as well. The big additional factor is humidity because that affects the ability for your body to cool down with sweating through evaporation. We looked at something called the indoor wet bulb globe temperature, and that combines the effect of humidity and temperature to look at how the body is capable of cooling itself down. And what we found is that in about 45% of cities that we analyzed in Europe – that’s about 854 cities there are in Europe, and about 45% of those, the wet bulb globe temperature was broken or forecast to be broken…

DETROW: Wow.

KEEPING: …Just in this heat wave.

DETROW: You know, you are well aware of how politicized the question of climate change often quickly gets. And given that and given how many different complex factors are at play here, what is the best way for us to understand why your team was so confident that this recent heat wave was directly tied to climate change?

KEEPING: We’re able to answer that question using this scientific discipline known as attribution science, which is one of the many disciplines within climate science. And if you think about, say, temperatures, there’s a whole distribution of temperatures that might happen in June from a pretty cold day through the average, and then to these very, very hot extremes. And what we’re able to do is we’re able to use observational data and climate models to understand how the distribution of temperatures at that extreme shifts as a response to a global average temperature. And what we were able to find is that since 1976, this event has gone from one that people would just not experience in, you know, many lifetimes to one that you’d expect to see multiple times in the average lifetime.

DETROW: Is it accurate that Europe is currently the fastest warming continent on Earth?

KEEPING: Yes. Yeah, it is accurate, but maybe not in the way that it sounds. So the reason why Europe is the fastest warming continent is because it is on average the highest latitude continent. It’s the closest continent, on average, to one of the poles. And so the reason why it’s the fastest warming continent is because it started the coldest, right? So actually, the temperature extremes that you’re hitting towards the equator are still higher than the ones we’re seeing hit in Europe. And so, actually, if we go back to that idea of the physiological limits with the wet bulb globe temperature, we saw loads of records being broken this week in Europe, but those records are fairly normal, even, in some parts of the world that are kind of the humid tropics. So yes, Europe is stepping into a new climate. And it is warming very fast, and that does mean we really need to think about adaptation. But also, you know, climate change is pushing towards more dangerous extremes at lower latitudes as well.

DETROW: We are seeing that in just the last few days alone French authorities are reporting more than 1,000 fatalities. How worried are you that this is going to be another deadly summer?

KEEPING: I am concerned. I think it would be extremely surprising if there hadn’t been a very high death toll of this heat wave, also the May heat wave we experienced that was also record-breaking, and we know that early season heat waves kill more people. People are less adapted to the heat. There are more vulnerable people in the population, sadly. And the reality is, is that we know from the science that the increase in the temperature of heat waves that we see due to climate change, you know, it’s sometimes two degrees, three degrees on average for the temperature of heat waves in Europe. We know that that causes extra death. So we know that these heat waves are going to have killed people, and we know that they’re going to have killed much more people than they would have due to human-caused climate change as well.

DETROW: That is Theodore Keeping, a research associate in the analysis of extreme weather and wildfires at Imperial College London. Thanks for walking through all of this with us.

KEEPING: Thanks, Scott.

Transcript:

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

A Navy sailor in Norfolk, Virginia, recently pleaded guilty to premeditated murder in the killing of Petty Officer Angelina Resendiz. Her mother is demanding the Navy change how it handles missing persons and sexual assault. With that, we will warn the story contains details about a sexual assault. Steve Walsh with WHRO in Norfolk has the story.

STEVE WALSH, BYLINE: Esmeralda Castle is convinced the Navy bears some responsibility for her daughter’s death.

ESMERALDA CASTLE: They could have stopped this. That’s where they failed. He already had a history, and he harmed the first woman. He harmed the second one. They moved him. They could have done something. The first command could have done something.

WALSH: Petty Officer Jeremiah Copeland confessed to strangling and killing Castle’s daughter, Petty Officer Angelina Resendiz, on May 29, 2025, in his barracks. He’s been sentenced to 44 years in a military prison. The Navy had allowed Copeland to transfer to Resendiz’s ship, the USS James E. Williams in Norfolk, from the USS Harry S. Truman a few months earlier, even though he was under investigation in connection with two cases of sexual assault, including one where he allegedly strangled a woman, according to the charging documents.

CASTLE: Then you have the second one. So you have two. You have to protect him – right? – and everybody else.

WALSH: During Copeland’s sentencing hearing, prosecutors said that to give himself time to conceal Resendiz’s death, he wrapped her body in a blanket and pretended to be sleeping with her in his barracks. Incredibly, a chief petty officer saw the staged scene the morning after the murder but left without checking on her. Rachel VanLandingham is a former Air Force lawyer who teaches at Southwestern Law School. She says a conviction doesn’t solve the underlying problem.

RACHEL VANLANDINGHAM: But where’s the accountability for his command chain who failed to protect this young service member from a fellow service member that they were already on notice was dangerous?

WALSH: It would take 11 days to find Resendiz’s body. Advocates find similarities between Resendiz’s case and Vanessa Guillen, an Army specialist murdered by a fellow soldier in 2020. The Army treated Guillen as if she were AWOL, which delayed the search. The publicity led to changes in how the military handles sexual assault cases and missing troops. The Army disciplined 21 people after Guillen’s death, says VanLandingham.

VANLANDINGHAM: There were supposed to be lessons learned across the board, including what you do when a soldier goes missing, and the Navy here missed the memo on what to do.

WALSH: Copeland and his military defense team haven’t spoken outside the courtroom. Prosecutors say Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents invested more than 4,000 hours in the case. Last September, then-Navy Secretary John Phelan announced that the Navy was reviewing some of the circumstances surrounding the case, including how and why Copeland was transferred to Resendiz’s ship. The review began roughly a year ago, but the results haven’t been released. Castle, Resendiz’s mom, is calling on the Navy to set up an independent panel, similar to what the Army did after Guillen’s death.

CASTLE: We’re still not done. This isn’t justice. This is a process, and justice is when everyone is safe and that this doesn’t happen again. And if it does happen again, they have an avenue for accountability.

WALSH: For NPR News, I’m Steve Walsh in Norfolk, Virginia.

(SOUNDBITE OF CITY OF THE SUN’S “NASCOSTO NEL MONDO”)

Transcript:

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority took a sledgehammer to much of the federal government’s regulatory structure today. It struck down almost all the limits that Congress and courts had previously established to protect the independence of regulatory agencies. Those agencies make up roughly a third of the federal government. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.

NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: The court’s decision reversed a 91-year-old precedent that had protected multimember and term-limited agency heads from being fired except for misconduct or malfeasance in office. The decision potentially opens the door, as well, to allowing presidents to fire at will not just agency leaders but potentially lower-level government experts who, since 1883, have been protected by the Civil Service Reform Act. President Trump called the decision a big win, one of the most important rulings ever given with respect to presidential powers.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion for the court’s six conservative justices with the three liberals in dissent. Quoting President George Washington, Roberts said, in order to discharge his duties, the president must have the assistance of officers he can trust. And although it’s up to the Senate to decide whether to confirm those with whom the president would prefer to work, neither Congress nor the courts may saddle him with people he can’t work with.

Just how far down the chain of command that mandate reaches is unclear. Could the president fire apolitical, scientific or health experts, nuclear weapons specialists, weather predictors or accountants, Social Security caseworkers or even secretaries? Yes, says Jacob Huebert, a senior litigation counsel for the conservative New Civil Liberties Alliance, which filed a brief in the case supporting Trump’s position.

JACOB HUEBERT: The president is in charge of the executive branch. That means the whole executive branch, not just the officials at the top, but people underneath that, as well, whether those are officials high up in an agency or down low in an agency.

TOTENBERG: Indeed, today’s ruling is the greatest expansion of presidential power since the court, just two years ago, ruled that even former presidents are broadly immune from prosecution for their official acts while in office. Prior to today’s ruling, no president has tried to wrest control of agencies that regulate such a huge swath of American life and the economy. Harvard Law Professor Dan Tarullo.

DAN TARULLO: It’s surely the case that this Supreme Court has pursued a quite aggressive form of unitary executive theory, which has essentially eliminated independent agencies from the United States government.

TOTENBERG: But he notes that regulatory agency policy has, in modern times, whipsawed back and forth between administrations, and that whipsawing effect is likely to grow now.

TARULLO: I suspect that it’s something that presidents of both parties will take full advantage of.

TOTENBERG: In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, speaking for the court’s three liberals, accused the majority of discarding a democratic regime that has long been in place and substituting the majority’s theory of unitary total executive control. The result, she said, is a president who emerges with far greater power than ever before. It’s a power, however, that neither the people nor Congress nor the Constitution bestowed upon him.

But in a second decision today, the court took a contrary position when it came to the Federal Reserve Board and Trump’s attempt to fire economist Lisa Cook, the first Black woman appointed to the Fed’s board of directors and a Biden appointee. While the court did not fully resolve the case, it refused to remove Cook from the Fed board and sent her case back to the lower courts to determine whether she did anything wrong that would justify her firing. The president tried to fire her, accusing her of mortgage fraud, though, subsequent reporting has strongly indicated the charges are without merit.

Indeed, in his opinion today, the chief justice warned lower courts to examine such charges to ensure that they’re not pretextual. Harvard’s Professor Tarullo, himself a former member of the Federal Reserve Board, was relieved by the court’s decision to protect the Fed’s independence. That he views as an essential win. Indeed, as Chief Justice Roberts observed in his opinion today, the last time that the country abandoned the idea of an independent bank to set monetary policy, what followed was an era of, quote, “ruinous financial panics,” which ultimately led to the creation of another central bank in 1913.

That bank, the Fed, today sets monetary policy and protects public and private interests when they’re imperiled. The vote in the Federal Reserve case was 5 to 4 with Justice Brett Kavanaugh joining Chief Justice Roberts and the court’s three liberals. Writing in dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas blasted the majority for what he called second-guessing the Constitution.

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

Transcript:

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

It’s time now for “My Unsung Hero,” our series from the team at the Hidden Brain podcast. “My Unsung Hero” tells the stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression on someone else. Today’s story comes from Lia Eastep. When Eastep was 21, her father had a stroke. His mind was sharp as ever, but he lost the use of his left arm and became unsteady on his feet. A few years later, around Christmas, their family took a trip to New York City. To make it easier to get around, her dad rented a wheelchair. One afternoon, they got on a crowded subway.

LIA EASTEP: And so my dad decided that he would stand up, and he could hold onto the pole, and we could collapse up the wheelchair. And just as he got up, the train took off, and it just pitched my dad forward. And, we all gasped. And there was a man sitting in a seat with a bicycle across his lap. And it happened so fast, but the guy just opened his arms and my dad fell right into him. I mean, he caught him, and it was like they were just embraced in this hug, like kind of just this extended hug of strangers.

But it was clear that he was not going to be able to get him up while the train was moving. And, you know, I think either me or my brother must have said, Dad, because the guy goes, I got Dad. And it was just the sound of his voice. I’ll never forget that. I was just very cheerful, but also very reassuring. Like, I got this. And he did. And, you know, he talked to my dad, and it wasn’t too much, but it was more like chit chat. It was like, oh, are you guys in town? You know, what have you seen?

And so the train stopped, and the guy got off before we did, and he got some people that were next to him to get my dad up on his feet. Like, it was no big deal. I mean, just kind of set him on his feet, wished us a happy holidays and went on.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

EASTEP: Because I was 21, I didn’t really realize the significance until later on. And as I learned to really kind of recognize my dad’s vulnerability – right? – like, that could have been a really terrible – it would have probably ended our trip, and we would have gone to the emergency room. So he provided some kind of dignity to my dad I think by just making it no big deal.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

EASTEP: You know, this man who we knew for, I don’t know, three minutes really kinda of became a role model to me of how I would like to be with people if I’m ever called upon in an emergency. The way that man was with my dad, it really made a big impact.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DETROW: Lia Eastep lives in Columbus, Ohio. Her dad was Larry Eastep. You can find more stories of unsung heroes and learn how to submit your own at hiddenbrain.org.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

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SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

Our series, America In Pursuit, explores culture, history and objects in American life. Two-hundred-fifty years ago, the founders of the U.S. signed the Declaration of Independence. Today, NPR’s Clare Lombardo tells us how Thomas Jefferson drafted it.

CLARE LOMBARDO, BYLINE: Thomas Jefferson wasn’t just designing a new nation 250 years ago. He was also designing himself a portable desk.

ANTHEA HARTIG: Which almost looks like a laptop to us because it has a hinge case on a box, beautiful sliding out drawers for your pens and your ink and your blotters.

LOMBARDO: Anthea Hartig, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

HARTIG: The hinge also has a small rail on the front so you can prop up a book and read it. Or you can open it.

LOMBARDO: To create a perfect writing surface. Jefferson had it made out of mahogany in Philadelphia.

HARTIG: So, we think this is probably made very late 1775 or early 1776.

LOMBARDO: And in the steamy summer months of 1776, he used this desk to draft the Declaration of Independence.

HARTIG: And, of course, it went through many drafts and each word was debated. What kind of – are these sacred rights? Are these inalienable rights? They land, of course, on that beautiful kind of two paragraphs of some of the most soaring prose in U.S. history and then a long series of grievances.

LOMBARDO: Years later, in 1825, his granddaughter is getting married, and he designs a brand new desk, ships it, and it’s lost at sea. So he ships the couple his desk, the one he’d designed himself and had been using for the past 50 years. And he leaves two notes.

HARTIG: He wrote, quote, “politics, as well as religion, has its superstitions. These gaining strength with time may one day give imaginary value to this relic for its great association with the birth of the great charter of our independence.”

LOMBARDO: That was under the writing board. And there was another for his granddaughter’s new husband.

HARTIG: Mr. Coolidge must do me the favor of accepting this gift. Its imaginary value will increase with years.

LOMBARDO: And if he lives to my age or another half century, Jefferson wrote, he may see it carried in the procession of our nation’s birthday, as the relics of the saints are in those of the church. Jefferson wasn’t far off. The desk is on display this summer in a special exhibit called American Aspirations at the Smithsonian Castle in Washington, D.C.

Clare Lombardo, NPR News.

Transcript:

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

The tennis world has never been quite the same since Serena Williams walked away back in 2022. Well, at age 44, she is returning this week to play Wimbledon, both singles and doubles, alongside her big sister, Venus Williams. Since the GOAT is back, so is the buzz. So we had to have sports writer and author Howard Bryant on the show to talk Williamses. Welcome back.

HOWARD BRYANT: Thank you for having me.

DETROW: There is something – there’s a lot of things I love about this comeback, but I love the fact that, like, I can specifically remember reading about Venus and Serena in Sports Illustrated for Kids (ph) when I was a kid.

BRYANT: (Laughter).

DETROW: And all these years later, they are making a comeback, and they have, of course, in the meantime, established themselves as two of the greatest tennis players of all time. How are you thinking about this return to the courts?

BRYANT: Well, I think it depends. I mean, I think when you look at it from a sisters standpoint, Venus really never left. I mean, she’s been playing on the tour for, you know, since she was – what? – 14 years old. There’s the difference between the watchers and the doers. We’re the watchers. We believe in the narratives. We create the poetry. We do all of these things. And they’re the doers. They’re the athlete. And when you’re the athlete, you have to play until the tank is empty because as the great Satchel Paige once said, you only come around this way once.

DETROW: (Laughter).

BRYANT: And when you’re Venus, you’re here, and you’ve been playing, but you’re not Venus Williams anymore. So the poetry is not there. And so a lot of people are like, why are you still doing this? And she still wants to play. And she’s a legend. And then when you think about Serena, it’s a bit of a different story. Serena Williams was clearly chasing that 24th and 25th major. She got to 23. She beat Venus at the 2017 Australian Open, and nobody knew at the time, but she was pregnant when she won.

And then when she came back, there was this – the narrative of wanting to win a major as a mother and that this was an inspirational thing for her. And she got back. She got to four finals, and she didn’t win a set. She lost all four. And when she left, she never quite said she was retiring. And I was at that match. I was at her match against Ajla Tomljanovic at the 2022 U.S. Open. And she said she was evolving and not retiring. And there’s always been something when it comes to Serena that feels unfinished. She’s come out and said that she has no pressure, that she’s done more than anyone could ever dream of, that she’s done more than she ever dreamed of, and that there’s no pressure and that she wants to see her two daughters see her play tennis.

DETROW: Do you believe that?

BRYANT: But I don’t believe that.

DETROW: (Laughter).

BRYANT: I don’t believe that at all. I have a very hard time believing that Serena Williams is going to come out here to get crushed.

DETROW: Yeah.

BRYANT: Maybe there’s more enjoyment in it now, but I don’t think she’s just back for funsies (ph). I think she’s looking and she’s recognizing that even though she’ll be 45 in September, that she may be looking at that field and thinking, I can beat them.

DETROW: I want to try something out here and kind of watch a couple examples of their play over the years with you. Let’s both pull up a clip from 2016 Wimbledon and take a look at that and tell me what, if anything, is different to you in terms of the style, in terms of how they play, in terms of how the match is going?

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED TENNIS PLAYER #1: (Grunting).

(SOUNDBITE OF TENNIS BALL BEING HIT BACK AND FORTH)

BRYANT: Still Venus on the back line and Serena playing up. You know, quicker points. Obviously, when you’re on grass, it’s – you know, it’s first strike tennis.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED TENNIS PLAYER #1: (Grunting).

UNIDENTIFIED TENNIS PLAYER #2: (Grunting).

(APPLAUSE)

BRYANT: And of course, you know, that Serena serve is something that they should just put in the Louvre. You know, the pressure they put on the opposition and the forcing the opposition to also hit with them. Once again, I mean, one of the things that they always say in tennis is, is the match on your racket? Meaning, is it in your control, or are you being controlled? And the thing about watching them is that so many times the match is on their racket because of the power that they bring to it and the coordination, as well, and the hands and the whole thing.

I mean, we talk about the power all the time, but the beauty of Serena, especially, is the fact that she is such a complete tennis player – offensive, defensively, at the net, the volleys, the overheads, all of it. She’s just so technically sound. And the beauty of the two of them together is the number of times we watch them compete against each other – they really have fun playing together. It is such a joy to watch them compete and recognizing as well that they’re a family. And that is the – it’s the most unique relationship, I think, in the history of American sports.

DETROW: Given all of that, what are you hoping for and what do you think is likely as they set out on Wimbledon together over the coming weeks?

BRYANT: I think the expectations are very, very low. I think it’s joy. I think you have to go into it with joy. The one thing that you’re absolutely hoping is that, you know, you want them to stay healthy. And usually, what happens in these tournaments, especially because Serena is deciding to go all-in – she’s jumping into the deep end of the pool – you just want them to be able to stay on the court. And then the rest of it, who knows? This is why we watch the games. We haven’t seen Serena play in a singles match since September of 2022, but the one thing that I think everyone is hoping that there’s some magic here that we’ll never forget.

DETROW: Howard Bryant, thanks so much for talking.

BRYANT: Thank you.

DETROW: You can hear Howard talking sports in NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, and his most recent book is “Kings And Pawns: Jackie Robinson And Paul Robeson In America.”

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)